1 November

Dear Friends

Christianity, as theologian Robert Vosloo reminds us, can be described as a “religion of memory.” It is bound together by rituals of remembrance. As the words engraved on our communion table read, “This do in remembrance of me”—the same words we will repeat again on Sunday as we share in communion.

Vosloo points out that early Christian thinkers were deeply engaged in the “art of memory.” Augustine, for example, was in awe of our ability to remember and draw on our memories: “This faculty of memory is a great one, O my God, exceedingly great, a vast, infinite recess. Who can plumb its depth?” Augustine even admired that we could remember having forgotten something!

Together with Augustine, we might affirm the remarkable power of memory to reform and transform our identity. Memory, Vosloo says, provides the resources we need to face the present and to reimagine the future.

At the same time, however, we must acknowledge that memory is fragile. Our memories are often marked by trauma and violence. As Vosloo notes, we can be frightened by the way we remember the past, and we sometimes wound others through the ways we narrate or construct it. In many ways, memory itself stands in need of healing and redemption. It, too, needs to be touched by grace.

It feels, interestingly, as though we are in a season of remembrance. Last Sunday, we celebrated Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary, reflecting on dreams and imaginations through the fragments of our memory. This Friday, Reformed churches around the world will mark Reformation Day, and on Sunday we will commemorate All Saints and All Souls. Then, to complete the sequence, we will gather again for Remembrance Sunday on the 9th.

So, what, and how, do we remember? Or perhaps even more interestingly: what, and how, do we choose to forget?

Have a great weekend!

Marius Louw